Imatges de pàgina
PDF
EPUB

instigated to the crime would never forgive his desertion of them in the hour of peril.

Mary's life being embittered by the perverse conduct of this froward and headstrong youth, a project for a divorce was submitted to her by the nobles, but to this she would not listen, lest it might throw a doubt upon her son's legitimacy, and thereby prejudice his claim to the English succession. It was then hinted to her by Lethington that he might be removed by other means; but Mary at once rejected the guilty suggestion, and expressly forbade all mention of violence. Still, knowing the character of the men who were the avowed enemies of her husband, we can hardly believe that she could be altogether unsuspicious of their dark schemes against his life. And although he and his father had conspired against her crown and liberty, still, if she suspected the bloody purpose, it certainly was her duty to interpose her authority for its defeat, not to procure facilities for its execution. Darnley recovering from an attack of the small pox at Glasgow, was, by Mary, conveyed in a litter to Edinburgh, and lodged without the city, in a house called Kirk of Field. On the 9th of February 1567, the Queen had just left him to attend a masque in the palace, when some of Bothwell's dependents strangled Darnley and his page, and having carried the bodies outside the garden, they blew up the house with gunpowder. The principal parties who are proved to have been concerned in this diabolical act are, Bothwell, Lethington, Morton, Sir James Balfour, and Archibald Douglas.

It gives us a dark and fearful picture of the age, when we see noblemen and gentlemen-the highest in rank in the land, and the very persons charged with the government of the country, and the preservation of its tranquillity-engaged in planning and executing two such execrable murders as have just been recorded. In the fate, however, of the principal actors in these bloody scenes, it is instructive to look at the retributive justice of heaven. Bothwell died mad in a foreign dungeon; Lennox perished by the stroke of a political adversary, and Morton by the hand of the public executioner-whilst Lethington only escaped the same ignominious fate by a voluntary

death in prison. We may add, that although Ruthven died in his bed, yet blood did not depart from his house. His son was beheaded, and his line terminated in the two unhappy youths, his grandsons, who perished in the Gowrie conspiracy.

VII.-Reign of Mary-Continued.

FROM THE MURDER OF DARNLEY TO THE QUEEN'S
FLIGHT INTO ENGLAND. 1567-8.

THE murder of the king, for with this title Darnley had been honoured since his marriage with the Queen, produced the strongest excitement throughout the nation. Suspicion immediately fell upon Bothwell; and as Mary's partiality for that nobleman was well known, and as she delayed taking immediate and energetic measures for the discovery and punishment of the murderers, dark surmises began to be formed that she herself was not free from a guilty knowledge of the plot. Subsequent events served but too plainly to strengthen and confirm these surmises. Bothwell, accused by Lennox, was tried for the murder; but his trial was a mockery. Thousands of his adherents occupied the streets of the capital: armed men beset the tolbooth, and allowed none to enter save those favourable to the accused: and in these circumstances, no one daring to sustain the charge, Bothwell was acquitted. The Queen returning from Stirling to Edinburgh was, with her retinue, arrested by Bothwell and an armed band, who conveyed them with a show of violence to Dunbar. It was, however, generally believed, that this apparently forcible seizure of her person was not made without the Queen's consent. After a short residence at Dunbar, she returned with her favourite to Edinburgh, where they were married, on the 15th of May 1567.

Public indignation was now flaming fierce and high. against Bothwell, and the infatuated Queen, now inseparably identified with him. Rumours were spread abroad that he meant to seize the person of the infant Prince, and murder him as he had already done the father. A

combination was formed for the Prince's protection, and for the purpose of withstanding the now overgrown and dangerous power of Bothwell. Those very nobles who had joined him in planning the murder, now, with affected horror at the crime, turned against him; and Mary and Bothwell, with the few troops they could raise, found themselves surrounded by the forces of the insurgent Lords, at Carberry Hill, about six miles to the east of Edinburgh. Mary, finding her troops in no disposition to fight, and seeing herself almost deserted, had no alternative, but to listen to the terms of the nobles, who sent a message saying, that if she would dismiss Bothwell from her presence, and consent to rule by the advice of her nobles, they would obey and honour her as their sovereign. Bothwell, having taken farewell of the Queen, left the field, and the country to which he was destined never to return 15th of June, 1567. Mary was conducted, amid the hootings of the soldiers, and the insults of the populace, to the capital, where she expected to be re-instated in her authority; but the nobles had no intention of fulfilling this part of their compact. Their sovereign was a prisoner in their hands, and they saw in the unpopularity she had incurred by her marriage with the flagitious and blood-stained Bothwell, a means of gratifying their own ambition. She was sent a prisoner to Lochleven Castle, where she was compelled to resign her crown; the young Prince was proclaimed King; and Murray, who was at that time in France, was invited home to take upon himself the Regency.

To these violent proceedings of the confederated Lords many of the nobility were opposed. The Hamiltons, with the Duke of Chatelherault at their head, mustered their forces, protesting against the unlawful deposition of the sovereign; but it gives us a melancholy view of the support on which Mary, in her day of peril, had to lean, when we find the Duke sending a secret message to her enemies, declaring, that he and his party would immediately join them, if they would agree to put Mary instantly to death. The Duke was the next heir to the crown, failing Mary and her issue; and this accounts for his bloody and apparently inconsistent proposal.

After about a year's imprisonment Mary, whose beauty had made an impression on George Douglas, a younger brother of the owner of the Castle, nearly effected her escape by means of his services. She had entered a boat

in the dress of a waiting-woman, but was detected through the disguise by the delicate whiteness of her hands and arms: she was conveyed back to her prison, and George Douglas dismissed from Lochleven. He still, however, continued to plot for her release, and a page having stolen the keys, on the 2d of May 1568, she got out with one or two attendants, locked the gate, and threw the key into the lake to prevent pursuit: and helping to row the boat with her own hand, she reached the shore, where she was received by George Douglas, and the Hamiltons. She gallopped first to Niddry, and then to Hamilton, where she was joined by Argyle, Cassilis, Eglinton, and a great many other Lords and Barons, who, summoning their vassals, soon brought around the Queen an army of six thousand men.

Mary, anxious to avoid the evils of a civil war, offered terms of reconciliation and forgiveness to the Regent, who was at this time in Glasgow, totally unprepared for this unexpected event. He pretended to listen to the terms for an accommodation, and thus craftily obtained ten days, which he employed in summoning Morton, Glencairn, Lennox, and others of his party, who, proceeding by forced marches to Glasgow, mustered a force of four thousand men. A battle ensued at Langside, in which, by the skilful arrangements of Kirkaldy of Grange, the Regent gained a complete victory. Mary, having witnessed from a small eminence the total rout of her army, fled southward, and never stopped till she reached the Abbey of Dundrennan, sixty miles distant. Not daring to trust her life in the hands of her rebellious subjects, she took the resolution of passing into England, and seeking the protection of Elizabeth. This step has been blamed by most of our historians as fatal and ill-advised. Fatal it certainly was, as the event proved; but ill-advised we cannot pronounce it, since the vindictive passions she left behind her, could scarcely have been satisfied with aught short of her death.

VIII.-Regency of the Earl of Murray-
1567-1570.

THE English Queen ordered the fugitive Princess to be received with all courtesy and respect, but at the same time to be strictly watched, and on no account suffered to leave the kingdom. Mary solicited a personal interview with Elizabeth, that she might vindicate herself from the calumnies of her enemies; but received for answer, that this was impossible, so long as she stood charged with so heinous a crime as the murder of her husband. The whole conduct of Elizabeth and her ministers, in regard to Mary, is marked by unprincipled duplicity and rigour. Mary's entry into England had been free and voluntary, Fet was she, without any reason alleged, or cause assigned, detained a prisoner, contrary to all the laws of justice and of honour. Elizabeth, bent on getting the management of the affairs of Scotland into her own hands, did not scruple to use any means, however base, for the attainment of her object. She was lavish of fair promises both to Mary and the Regent, given in secret, and at variance with one another; and as she could not be sincere in both, it is probable that she never intended to keep faith with either. She promised to Mary, that if she would submit to her the decision of her quarrel with her subjects, she would not allow them to advance any accusation touching her honour, but would re-instate her in her kingdom, either by persuasion or force. To Murray she promised, that if he made good his accusation against his sovereign, she would keep Mary a close prisoner, and support him in his present office of Regent.

Mary's misfortunes had excited a strong feeling of sympathy in her own kingdom, and Murray had become highly unpopular. Argyle and Huntly had reduced the north and west to the Queen's authority, and were at the head of a force sufficient to make the Regent tremble, if not to hurl him from his vice-regal throne, when they were arrested in their success by an order from Mary. She informed them that Elizabeth was about to restore her without bloodshed, and she therefore called upon them to desist from prosecuting the war. It was Mary's

« AnteriorContinua »